Dean Edwards: Druggie nabbed after ice find at Frankston festival
A Frankston festival caught out a druggie after a police clampdown came up with showbags of a different kind.
South East
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A homeless drug addict found walking the streets during a foreshore festival with 11 bags of ice now has a new home — behind bars.
Dean Robert Edwards was nabbed during a police clampdown on illegal activity during The Waterfront Festival in Frankston last month.
The unemployed 41-year-old was also caught breaking into a property to smoke ice, and nabbed with a baton in his pocket and carrying knuckle dusters.
He pleaded guilty to 10 weapons, drug possessions, trespass, criminal damage and bail breach charges at the online Frankston Magistrates’ Court on Monday.
The court heard police had been given special powers in the Frankston area during the March 20 festival.
At around noon officers came across Edwards strolling along Nepean Highway and searched him, finding 11 small bags of meth.
He gave them a “no comment” interview, and as he was on bail at the time, he was remanded in custody.
Four days earlier he had been caught with knuckle dusters when cops raided a mate’s Frankston property looking for drugs.
In October last year Edwards and a pal broke into a Seaford construction site, but were easily caught because the owner was monitoring them on live CCTV.
When police arrived they found him with prescription medication, including Viagra, and an extendible baton, which he said was for self-defence.
Two months earlier he was caught in a drug-addled state on Frankston pier with a baton, and in July he was at Greensborough railway station when PSOs saw him, again with a baton hidden in his pocket.
His defence lawyer said the former scaffolder, plasterer and boilermaker could no longer work due to a hand injury and was homeless and using ice during the crime spree.
He said he possessed weapons because he feared becoming a victim of violence, and was looking for somewhere to smoke drugs when he was caught at the construction site.
Magistrate Julian Ayres said Edwards had been jailed last year for almost identical offending, and had been breaching corrections orders almost continually since 2015.
“You’ve been to court 24, 25 times, you’ve heard it all before,” Mr Ayres said.
“You will spend the rest of your life in and out of custody if you don’t avoid drugs of dependence.
“You have to remain clean.”
He accepted the weapons were for self-defence, but that was because he engaged in illicit activity that carried a high risk of being assaulted.
Edwards was jailed for four months, minus 37 days he has already served.
